YCCCART 2017/Y5
Was Mansbury the meeting place of the Hundred of Congresbury?
YATTON, CONGRESBURY, CLAVERHAM AND CLEEVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
RESEARCH TEAM (YCCCART)
General Editor: Vince Russett
The mound at Mansbury in high summer 2016
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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Page
Contents
3
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Introduction
4
Site location
Land use and geology
5
Historical & archaeological context
9
Landscape analysis
11
References
Archive
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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Abstract
The case is made on topographic, documentary and toponymic grounds for the natural
rock outcrop at Wrington Road, Congresbury being the feature responsible for the placename 'Mansbury', known since 1567 at the latest, and potentially, the meeting place for
the Hundred of Congresbury during the period between the middle of the 11 th century and
the beginning of the 14th.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the members of Yatton, Congresbury, Claverham and Cleeve
Archaeological Research Team (YCCCART), and Congresbury Local History Society for their
support. However, any inaccuracies in this report are my own.
Introduction
Yatton, Congresbury, Claverham and Cleeve Archaeological Research Team (YCCCART) is
one of a number of community archaeology teams across northern Somerset, originally
supported by the North Somerset Council Development Management Team.
The objective of the teams is to carry out archaeological fieldwork, for the purpose of
recording, and better understanding and management, of the heritage of northern
Somerset.
The investigation for this report was largely carried out in mid-2016 and early 2017.
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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Site location
King's Wood
Yatton
Fig 1: White arrow indicates the position of Mansbury
Mansbury is located at ST44526415, 960m ENE of the parish church of St Andrew's,
Congresbury, adjacent to the Bristol to Wrington Road. Congresbury is 14km south-west
of Bristol in the unitary authority of North Somerset.
Land use and geology
The mound itself is an outcrop of the Lower Carboniferous Limestone of the nearby
Broadfield Down, emerging from the surrounding clay soils of the Mercia Mudstones. It is
permanently pasture, with a significant quarry and other features cut into it. It can be
seen from a local footpath. It is on private land currently used as pasture, but under
application for housing development.
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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Historical and archaeological context
In England a hundred was the division of a shire for military and judicial purposes under
the common law, which could have varying extent of common feudal ownership, from
complete suzerainty to minor royal or ecclesiastical prerogatives and rights of ownership.
Until the introduction of districts by the Local Government Act 1894, hundreds were the
only widely used assessment unit between the parish, with its various administrative
functions and the county, with its formal, ceremonial functions, in size
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_(county_division).
Their first documentation of the existence of hundreds as such an entity is in the laws of
King Edmund (939-946). The slightly later laws of King Edgar (943-975) include the rule
that the hundred court should meet every four weeks. It's role was to deal with minor
judicial events and fines for such.
The origins of the hundred are not clear. As early as the works of Tacitus (1 st century AD),
he referred to organisations within the Germanic peoples as 'centenni', whose literal
meaning is 'the hundred ones' (Benario 1999)
This has led to speculation that the hundred is of Germanic origin, and brought to Britain
by the predecessors of the kings of the West Saxons. A similar organisation of a supposed
hundred heads of households is known in several countries in north-west Europe. Some
support for this is found in the general understanding that a hundred should consist of 100
hides (a complex term, but broadly accepted as meaning 'land that can support a family'),
and the fact that in Mercian areas of England, this is indeed the most usual size, but in
Wessex, which later became the predominant power and eventually became England, it is
not, implying that the hundreds in Mercia were imposed, whereas those that grew in
Wessex were more 'naturally' formed. Unfortunately for certainty, such structures also
existed in Wales (the cantref ), where it is supposed they originated long before the
English conquests in the 13th century (Davies et al 2008: 113).
Hundred courts were gradually superceded by more local manorial courts, and after a long
drawn out history were abolished in the late 19th century.
They were also much more flexible in size and manors contained than the shires they
served. Manors could switch between hundreds, or hundreds combine, both of which
happened in Somerset.
One clear fact we know about the area of northern Somerset is that a Hundred of
Congresbury was in existence by the time of the Geld Inquest in 1084 (Roffe 2000). The
Congresbury Hundred seems to have consisted of the manors of Congresbury, Wick St
Lawrence, Iwood, and perhaps more surprisingly, part of Badgworth and East Cranmore,
near Shepton Mallet. Thorn (2010) puts forward a convincing argument that this strange
chimaeric hundred was the work of Harold Godwinson (later King Harold II), who seized
Congresbury in c1060 from the bishop of Wells. This may perhaps account for the
otherwise inexplicable dedication of Badgworth parish church to St Congar, who's main
cult centre was at Congresbury (Oates and Costen 2003). Once Congresbury had been
returned to the bishop by King John (Cran 1983: 29), there was no need for a separate
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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Hundred of Congresbury, and like Cheddar, it was absorbed into the vast Hundred of
Winterstoke, to the south.
One of the central facts about hundreds is that there was a traditional meeting place,
where the courts and general meetings could be held in the open air. Some of the local
hundreds have identifiable meeting places today. The Hundred of Bempstone, for example,
centred on the royal vill of Wedmore, met at a standing stone on the hill at Stone Allerton
(Collinson 1791: (1): 163); the Hundred of Portbury met at a stone within the ramparts of
the minor hill fort at Portbury (Alexander 1996; 1996b; 1997); the short-lived Hundred of
Cheddar, probably at a prominent tree in Hythe Lane, where the field name Spelthorne (a
typical hundredal meeting place name) occurs (Cheddar Tithe Map and Apportionment
1837 – 1841 SHC D\D/Rt/A/245; D\D/Rt/M/245).
There are several features of such a hundredal meeting place that are clearly required in a
largely pre-literate society. These are clearly laid out in (for example) the University
College London on Historical Assembly Sites:
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/assembly/ElectronicAnderson)
1.
It must be a recognisable 'stand out' site in the landscape. Such features as
barrows, notably shaped hills, notable trees, standing stones, even prominent fords or
stone crosses are all known to be meeting place of various Hundreds.
2.
It must have good to excellent communication routes nearby, for obvious reasons.
3.
It may be remembered in field or place names, such as the Spelthorn names at
Cheddar, from OE 'spell' (speech, discourse) + 'þorn' (thorn tree). (The letter 'þ' is no
longer in use in modern English: it is roughly equivalent to the 'th-' sound in the word
'thorough') (Bosworth and Toller 1898). For a discussion on these features, see Baker and
Brookes 2015.
The major large contenders for the hundred meeting place of Congresbury are Cadbury
Congresbury hill fort, to the north on the border with the contemporary Yatton Hundred,
or the enclosure in Congresbury village, based around the minster church of St Andrew.
The latter is unlikely, since early hundred meetings seldom, if ever, took place in the heart
of a settlement. The hill fort is perhaps more likely. It has reasonable communications with
local routes, with the ancient hollow-way between Cleeve and Yatton passing to its east. It
even has a (natural) mound in the centre, called locally 'The citadel' or 'The Roman camp'
(Gardner 1959). However, the hill fort and its surroundings are divided between the two
contemporary Hundreds of Congresbury and Yatton, and while it was fairly common to
hold meetings on the boundary of hundreds, there are no further clues in terms of placenames or any other indications that this was the meeting place.
Perhaps a stronger contender is the natural stone outcrop at ST44526415. This is an
outcrop of mineralised Lower Carboniferous Limestone, in the centre of a gently sloping
field to the north east of Congresbury village. The mound is very clear from all directions,
round in plan, approximately 60m across, and almost 3m above the surrounding field on
its southern side (see lidar image, Fig 3). Its centre has been quarried or mined, and other
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cut features can be seen. In view of the known Roman iron smelting some 100m to the
south at Cobthorn Way (North Somerset HER 2016), the gradiometer survey of the site
(Stratascan 2016) and the nature of the rock, this may very well be the remains of Roman
industrial activity. It does, however, give the mound a striking resemblance to a large
bronze age barrow, even with what could be a robbing pit in its top. It is still a recognised
element of the landscape today, known to generations of Congresbury children as 'The
island' or 'Pirate's island'.
It is not clear exactly when the area around the mound was assarted from woodland (as
the larger boundary hedges in the area have ancient woodland indicators in them), but the
surrounding boundaries certainly have the aratral curves of medieval open fields, so the
area may well have been under plough by the 1060s. As an uncultivatable area, its grass
would have made the mound even more conspicuous in an arable landscape.
This mound's name is 'Mansbury', attested on the 1736-9 manorial maps of Congresbury
by deWilstar. The name is used in the 1567 survey of Congresbury to denote an area of
arable ('Mansborow' ) (Bristol Record Office (BRO) 04235).
Fig 2: The site
labelled AV is Cleyel
and Mansbury on
this 1736-9 map.
North at bottom.
(BRO 04480)
At the time, the
land was held by
a Mr James Jones
as 'At Clayel or
Clayhill a Close
arrable with a
Small patch in
Watergripe
together with a
Close of the
following Holding
Called Mansbury'
(BRO 1050941).
No earlier versions of this name are currently known, since earlier documents for
Congresbury have not been researched yet. However, in view of the mound's appearance,
the second element of it's name is almost certainly OE 'beorg' = 'hill, artificial mound'. The
first is more difficult, but Field (1972: 133) quotes several field names where the 'man-'
element means '(land held in) common, of the community', and the name could be a
breakdown of the OE 'gemaenscip' (of the community, belonging to the community)
(Bosworth and Toller 1898).
The element 'ge'- in this word is lost in place-name formation, so the place-name means
something like 'mound of the community'. It is this place-name, and the highly visible
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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nature of the mound that makes it a good candidate for the hundred meeting place.
Fig 3: Lidar image of the mound
(https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map;
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/lidar-compositedsm-1m1)
The mound's appearance on lidar
images (Fig 3) emphasises this
resemblance to a large, robbed,
barrow.
It also has good road and water links:
the main medieval roads to Wells,
Wrington (an important medieval
market town of the abbots of
Glastonbury) and Bristol meet at a
staggered cross roads only 100m from
the mound, and 3 roads and two
footpaths converge on the road junction only 80m from the mound. The Congresbury Yeo
was also navigable as far as the centre of the village in the medieval period, some 400m
from the mound.
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Landscape analysis
Fig 4: Congresbury Hundred, c 1060 – c 1300 (from
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/assembly/ElectronicAnderson)
Fig 5: Congresbury Hundred: Local features (red star-in-circle' marks the position of Mansbury)
The Congresbury Hundred (Fig 5) lies on two main routes between Bristol, Wells and
Wrington. In addition, its south-east boundary with the present parish of Churchill is
almost certainly a Roman Road (Gardner, K. pers comm). The Congresbury Yeo (blue line
in figure) was navigable in the medieval and later periods as far as the weir at West Mill,
Congresbury, documentary and landscape study, Hundred Meeting place, 2017, Y5, v1
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although this would have been present in 1060.
Most of the land to the west of Congresbury village is below 8.0m AOD, and although
excellent agricultural land, would not have been suitable for such a meeting place.
It is thus suggested that the natural quarried outcrop named Mansbury may well have
been the meeting point for the Hundred of Congresbury. This leads to increased
importance being stressed on its preservation in situ: undoubtedly ways can be found to
incorporate the mound into any developments at the site.
For example, Secklow Hundred Mound in Milton Keynes was included within developments
there (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1007940) and the stone the
meeting place of the Hundred of Stone in Yeovil, Somerset, is preserved in open space
(https://www.yalhs.org.uk/yeovils-hundred-stone/). Despite extensive Victoria County
History studies of the Hundreds of Somerset, their meeting places are rarely distinguished
in the works.
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References
Alexander, M. 1996
Portbury Hillfort Unpublished MA course work, in North Somerset
HER
Alexander, M. 1996b
Map regression analysis: Portbury parish Unpublished MA course
work, in North Somerset HER
Portbury Hundred: Inter-settlement organisation in the Saxon
period. Unpublished MA course work, in North Somerset HER
Alexander, M. 1997
Baker, J. and Brookes,
S. 2015
Identifying outdoor assembly sites in early medieval England
Journal of Field Archaeology 40.1, 3–21
Benario, H. W. 1999
Tacitus' Germany (trans.), Warminster
Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Oxford University Press
N. 1898
Collinson, J. 1791
The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset Bath, Vol
1: 165
Cran, A. 1983
The story of Congresbury Redcliffe Press, Bristol
Davies, J., Jenkins, N.,
Baines, M., Lynch, P.
2008
The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales, Cardiff: University of
Wales Press
Field, J. 1972
English Field Names: A dictionary David and Charles, Newton
Abbot
Gardner, K. 1959
Excavations at Cadbury Camp, Congresbury, Somerset
(http://www.ycccart.co.uk/index_htm_files/1959%20Report.pdf)
Oakes, M. and Costen, M. The Congresbury Carvings Antiquaries Journal 83, London
2003
Rippon, S. 2006
Landscape, Community and Colonisation: The North Somerset
Levels during the 1st and 2nd millennia AD Council for British
Archaeology, York
Roffe, D. 2000
Domesday: The Inquest and the Book Oxford University Press
Stratascan 2016
Congresbury, North Somerset [gradiometer survey] Report in
North Somerset HER
Thorn, F. 2010
Defining 'Winterstoke' Hundred, Somerset Proceedings of the
Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 153: 119 163
Archive
The archive for this project is in the general digital archive of YCCCART, in a folder called
'Mansbury'
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General author Vince Russett March 2017
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